This side of a Pancake

The diner’s neon sign hummed above us, throwing pink light across the window. Inside, the air was cool — a ceiling fan spun lazily while a Clanker wiped tables with mechanical patience. She was sitting Infront of me, eyes wide and legs swinging under the booth, stared at the glowing jukebox in the corner as it played songs without a band.

“Papa,” she asked between bites of syrup-dripping pancakes, “what’s it like… out there? Beyond the island?”

I leaned back, coffee warm in my hands, and let my eyes wander. Outside the glass, trams hissed past and automobiles rumbled by, headlights bouncing off puddles of neon. The crowds moved past the windows, some reading the magazine lazily, some running to catch a passing taxi. There was a young family of Fauns across the street. I smiled sadly as I saw the kids climbing over their dad like small goats. “Out there?” I said. “It’s slower. A different world entirely.”

“No trams. No radios. No Clankers to serve you pie.” She laughed at that. “People ride horses, row boats, pull carts themselves. Lords and Ladies in their castles and mansions still keep peasants tied to their land. Sails and cannons rule the seas. Even letters take weeks to cross a kingdom.”

Her little face furrowed, like I’d just told her a bedtime story about ogres. “No neon signs? No pancakes?” she whispered.

“Not a one light.” I said. “At night, towns are dark but for candles and fires. The forests go on forever. The mountains aren’t carved for cable cars. Life… it moves at the pace of the sun.” I smiled, though I wasn’t sure if it was nostalgia or pity I felt. “Atlantis doesn’t just move faster. It breathes differently. Every hum you hear, every light you see, every fan, every tram, every song from that jukebox… it all comes from the Star. Without it, this city would fall silent.” In my mind I was also thinking about the dangers, outside there are highway robbers, sickness and the will of your lord that might get you killed. In the City every corner hides another danger and even a contract can get you killed. I'm not sure which one is safer, if any. "They do have pancakes though!" I say instead, smiling to the girl.

She leaned close to the window, nose pressed to the glass, watching the automobiles crawl past, steam hissing in the night air. “I don’t ever want to leave,” she said softly. And above, as if it heard her, the Star pulsed once more.

Technology of Atlantis

Atlantis stands centuries beyond the outside world. While kingdoms abroad still live under feudal lords, with horse-drawn carts and slow sail ships, Atlantis thrives on Arcanum-powered technology. Arcanum power is free while you are at the view-distance to the Star and even a bit beyond the island. Machines using it are quite silent, but even when still they have a low hum or buzz that pulsates to the rhythm of the Arcanum Star. The city lights grow brighter and dimmer and the Clankers can feel the pulses of the Star even when they don't see it. General rule of thumb is that if the thing would make sense in 1950-1980 America, it can exist here but it will be Arcanum powered. The major difference is lack of electricity as a technology, there is no internet, no cell phones and no space rockets / satellites.

What exists in Atlantis:

• Transportation: Trams, Arcanum-powered automobiles, rickshaws, and airships. Cable cars are used around the Caldera to get passengers to the mountain faster. Steam and combustion engines exist but are crude, often replaced with Arcanum.
• Communications: Radios, wired intercoms, and telegraphs. Public broadcasts are common. The rich and the corporations have surveillance technology like cameras.
• Appliances: Refrigerators, fans, neon lighting, arcade-style glyph machines, jukeboxes, even basic medical devices - all fueled by the Star.
• Constructs: Clankers, sentient humanoid machines of brass and steel, serve mainly as workers, servants, or guards. Some are unsettlingly advanced, most are designed for a specific purpose.
• Weapons: Gunpowder remains in cannons and artillery; Street weapons are blades, bows, and Arcanum-charged tools like Brass knuckles (hand runes).

What does not exist:

• Firearms are extremely rare. The level of personal gunpowder weapons is muskets or flintlock guns. (no semi automatic pistols, rifles, or revolvers).
• No internet or cellphones. Communication is by radio, letter, or spell. Couriers are common for delivering packets and letters both. Some industrial Fungril have started a Fungril Telegraph Network that connects the major districts of the city.
• No electricity grid. Everything runs on Arcanum conduits, glyph circuits, or Arcanum batteries charged in Star’s pulse. With big enough batteries some Clankers have been able to survive outside of the island for weeks, but eventually they need to return to the island or to a Atlantean embassy or to a Vollstadt Universal charging station to avoid getting dried out - a term used of Clankers who have ran out of energy. Such Clankers can be revivified with a fresh supply of Arcanum, but memory loss or even personality changes are quite common side effects.

For those raised here, neon and Clankers feel ordinary. But for anyone arriving from outside, Atlantis is the future.

References

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